Secret Survivors is an initiative by Ping Chong + Company to use theater to raise awareness of child sexual abuse and join a nationwide movement to end it.

THEATER PROJECT

Secret Survivors is a theater project by Ping Chong + Company. Part of the company's ongoing Undesirable Elements series of community-specific oral history theater works, Secret Survivors uses direct personal narratives to talk about child sexual abuse, an epidemic that affects about 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys. Conceived for the company in 2009 by Amita Swadhin, an anti-violence activist and survivor, Secret Survivors represents the diverse ways this violence occurs and grapple with the many reasons that most survivors remain silent.

DOCUMENTARY AND TOOLKIT

Secret Survivors: Using Theater to Break the Silence, a documentary film (2012), produced by Ping Chong + Company and Whistle Films, explores the Secret Survivors theater production, and includes voices of survivors and advocates working in the field of child sexual abuse prevention. Ping Chong + Company published an accompanying toolkit, a resource for facilitating workshops and discussion around child sexual abuse.

NATIONAL INITIATIVE

Organizations around the country are creating their own theatrical productions and projects, modeled on Ping Chong + Company's original Secret Survivors production, featuring the voices and experiences of child sexual abuse survivors. These productions will become tools for community-based dialogue and action.

FUNDERS

National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Leading for the Future Initiative, a program of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

The toolkit and documentary was generously supported by the Ms. Foundation for Women, Frank and Ruth E. Caruso Foundation and contributors to our Indiegogo campaign. For a list of contributors, click here.

Amita Swadhin was a recipient of a grant from the Asian Women Giving Circle.